Who is at risk from covid? Knowing that what are we going to do about it? The single most important fact about the Covid is deciding how to respond to it. This is true both individually and in terms of governmental bias… uh basis, uh policy. We know covid is not equally dangerous for everybody. This became clear very early on. For some political reason our public health messaging continues to fail to get this fact out to the public.
A common misperception is COVID is equally dangerous to everybody. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a thousand fold difference between the mortality rate in older people (70 and up) and the mortality rate in children. It is true regardless how we receive the information.
Public health messaging
If covid was a disease killing children preferentially wouldn’t we want react very differently to it. But for young children this disease is less dangerous than the seasonal flu. This year, in the United States, more children have died from the seasonal flu than from COVID by a factor of two or three.
COVID is not deadly for children but for older people it is more deadly than the seasonal flu. Looking at studies worldwide we see the COVID fatality rate for people 70 and up is about 4%. About 4 in 100 among those 70 and older die as opposed to 2 in 1,000 in the overall population. This is a significant difference, about 20 times greater risk than average.
The huge difference between the danger of COVID to the young and the danger of COVID to the old is the most important fact about the virus. The fatality rates by age groups do go up with age. But the rate of rise is pretty flat until we get to the 70 plus group. Who is at risk from covid? This knowledge has not been a point of sufficient emphasis in public health messaging. It also has not been sufficiently taken into account by most policymakers.